The invention relates to an apparatus for the contactless fragmentation of concrements present in the body of a living being, with a shock wave generator which is aimed at a target region in the body and which includes a planar coil. A radiator element lies in front of the coil and closes off a liquid-filled space, and generates a shock wave therein upon brief connection of the coil to a high voltage.
The coil may be formed, according to the journal "Akustische Beihefte", 1962, Volume 1, pages 185 to 202, as a flat coil and may be located at one end of a fully closed, liquid-filled shock wave tube. At the other end of the shock wave tube, a flexible bag may be provided, by which the shock wave tube is applied to the surface of the body to be treated. Since in this case the generated shock wave is planar and must be focused on the concrement to be fragmented, an adjustable acoustic lens for focusing the shock wave may be provided in the shock wave tube. The structural design of such an apparatus requires a relatively great overall length of about one half meter.
It is one object of the invention to simplify apparatus of the initially mentioned kind, particularly by eliminating the acoustic focusing lens.
It is another object to generally improve on the prior art.